from the PHHA/Pocono

Wilkes-Barre, PA — Freshman pacing fillies will be coming to The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono for the third preliminary leg of Pennsylvania-sired action, with four divisions of a $253,980 Sire Stakes contest on Sunday (Aug. 9) and six divisions of $120,000 Stallion Series action on Tuesday (Aug. 11).

These fillies have shown remarkable competitiveness as there will be eight winners from the first two legs of the Sire Stakes and no fewer than 12 previous Stallion Series winners competing in the two days and of those 20 fillies, only one has won in both legs so far — Pure Country, a Sire Stakes filly who gives every indication that she could be headed for national stardom.

Pure Country is a filly who is pure pedigree on both sides. Her sire is newly-installed Horse Hall of Famer Somebeachsomewhere and her dam, Western Montana, is a Western Hanover who earned $175,000 at the races. And Western Montana’s bloodlines include two full brothers, Allamerican Ingot and Allamerican Inca, who won $2 million between them and a Jate Lobell $900,000-winning half-brother in LCB.

Trained by Hall of Famer Jimmy Takter for owner/breeder Diamond Creek Racing, Pure Country is perfect in three purse starts, winning a PA All-Stars race here before her Sires wins at Harrah’s Philadelphia and The Meadows. All three have been in 1:54.1 or better, the best the 1:53.1 in her last start at The Meadows, but what is truly special about her ability is that in each race — each on a five-eighths-mile track — Pure Country has beaten :27 seconds home.

And what’s really scary? Potentially , she just might not be the best one — not only of this Sires group or North America — but even under Takter’s own shedrow.

Takter also trains Ivy League, another Somebeachsomewhere out of the champion filly he campaigned, See You At Peelers (who is also now owned by Diamond Creek). Ivy League had two seconds and a parked-the-mile outing in her first three starts, but Takter got an A+ for “Ivy League horse sense” when he entered this golden-pedigreed miss in the Stallion Series’ first leg, so that she could continue her development without being over pressed.

Stepping up to the Sire Stakes at The Meadows in her next start, she had a devastating victory, coming from dead last, 10 lengths behind, to win in 1:52.2 in hand. She paced her own last half in :54, looking like a mature campaigner shifting into overdrive coming off the last turn, in breaking her maiden, no less.

Ivy League, bred by Christina Takter and John and Jim Fielding and owned by Christina Takter, John Fielding, Marvin Katz and Al Libfeld, has post five in race five; Pure Country has post two in race ten.

Takter has these two fillies in the Sire Stakes and three more in Tuesday’s Stallion Series; his co-occupant of the top of the training world, Ron Burke, has six Sire Stakes fillies and one in the Stallion Series (for a 7-5 edge at Pocono, reversing the preliminary 21-19 quantity edge — that could change, remember — Takter has on the Hambletonian card the day before the Sire Stakes.

As noted, there will be 12 winners from the first two Stallion Series legs, including six who have a second complementing their first, but no repeat winners when they face the gate on Tuesday. They should produce very competitive contests, and might point some direction as to who may be among the leaders in this class.